


Tamlen's Fate

by Katalyna_Rose



Series: Kahlia Mahariel [7]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Dalish Burial, Dalish Origin, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-29
Updated: 2016-09-29
Packaged: 2018-08-18 10:30:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8158964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katalyna_Rose/pseuds/Katalyna_Rose
Summary: Kahlia thought that her friend and clan mate Tamlen had died shortly after touching the mirror they found in an ancient ruin. Once she knows what really happened, she wished he had.





	

“Please, lethallan. I need you to end it. By your own hand.”

“I can’t…”

“ _Please!_ I don’t want to hurt you. I can’t fight the call much longer… End it!”

“Alright. I will do this… for you.”

“Thank you… I always loved you… Kahlia, I’m sorry.”

The blade sank deep, and he didn’t flinch. A small smile curved his lips as he began to fall, but Kahlia caught him on the way down. She put his head in her lap as his final breath left him, and began to sob. Her tears fell, hot and fast, and splashed on his ruined face. She remembered him so clearly, her blond-haired sun. The lines of Andruil’s Vallaslin used to accentuate his bone structure and make him seem almost otherworldly. He could make her laugh effortlessly. He’d taught her to wield a bow, and been so pleased when her skill surpassed his. He’d never been jealous, only proud. He was proud Dalish hunter, and he was her friend.

Now, as his body lay cooling in her lap, his hair was gone, his golden, sun-kissed skin was dark and slightly rotten, and his Vallaslin was twisted and pulled into unrecognizable shapes. It hurt her heart to see him like that. He had fallen so far and she had risen so high because of that one, awful moment in those ruins.

“Who… is that?” The question was Alistair’s. She didn’t want to answer, but they deserved some sort of explanation for the ghoul that she was crying over.

“Tamlen.” The word left her lips in a whisper, and her tears came faster, blurring her vision as she rocked and held him. “Tamlen,” she moaned. She couldn’t believe it was him, would have taken it for another awful Grey Warden nightmare but for the inescapable reality of his form cradled in her arms.

“Oh…” Alistair said, as eloquent as ever.

“I do not understand,” Zevran said quietly. No doubt all of her companions were watching her mourn the man who would have been her mate.

“He was with her when she was tainted,” Alistair said. “Her clan, and Duncan, too, thought that he was dead.” Kahlia heard Leliana gasp quietly.

After a few moments, Kahlia felt movement beside her, then a gentle hand on her shoulder. The scent of Zevran’s favorite soap drifted over her.

“What do you need, my dear?” he asked her. He understood, if any of them could.

“It was a mercy,” Alistair said. “It’s better… for it to end.”

“Such words will bring no comfort, Alistair,” Zevran said harshly.

“I need to bury him,” Kahlia moaned. “I need to bury him and plant a tree over his-“ A sob escaped her, and she couldn’t finish. She couldn’t bear to think of this man, who had been beside her nearly all her life, as the tormented ghoul who lay dead in her arms. “I need to give him what little honor I can.”

“Then we will do this for him,” Zevran told her. He moved away and organized their companions. “Sten, Alistair, Shale, please dig the grave. Over there, by that tree. Wynne, Leliana, please find a nice sapling and carefully dig it up. Oghren, you’re going to have to share your ridiculous amount of ale tonight, I think.” The dwarf grumbled but obeyed. The others moved to their tasks silently.

“Morrigan,” Kahlia said, trying to speak clearly through her tears. “Do you have embrium oil? Wolf’s bane branches?”

“I have both of those,” Morrigan said quietly.

“Can I use some? I need… to oil the body. And he should be buried with wolf’s bane.”

“Of course.” For once, Morrigan would not make a fuss.

“Would you like me to help you?” Zevran asked. Kahlia couldn’t speak anymore, just nodded mutely. “I will do this.”

Quickly, a large bottle of oil was pressed into Kahlia’s hand, and she began to rub it into Tamlen’s skin. Zevran helped her, and by the time Alistair reappeared to tell them that the grave was dug, the body was ready.

Desperately trying to stem the flow of her tears, Kahlia lifted her friend and clan mate into her arms. Hey weighed very little, his body malnourished and broken by the darkspawn corruption. Carefully, she lowered him into his grave beneath the towering branches of an ancient oak tree. He always loved oak. Kahlia tucked the wolf’s bane branch into his hand, folded across his chest, then climbed out of the grave. As the dirt was shoveled in above him, Kahlia began the rite, changing the words slightly as she did.

“Lethallin, na melana sahlin. Emma ir abelas. Souver’inan isala hamin. Vhenan him dor’felas. In uthenera na revas. Vir sulahn’nehn. Vir dirthara. Vir samahl la numin. Vir lath sa’vunin. Dareth shiral, ma falon, ma vhenan.”

_Kin, your time has come. Now I am filled with sorrow. Weary eyes need resting. Heart has become grey and slow. In waking sleep is freedom. We sing, rejoice. We tell the tale. We laugh and cry. We love one more day. Safe journey, my friend, my heart._

And then she was silent as the soil covered the last tie she had to her old life. Her clan would never be her home again, not with this beautiful man at last gone. Ashalle was a wonderful woman, had raised her as if she was her own, but she was not her mother. Marethari was a wise and kind Keeper, but she was not blood. Kahlia’s parents were long dead. Merrill was sweet and kind, but she was a mage and First and she had little time for her friends. And now that Tamlen was gone, she had no real ties left to that life. She was a Grey Warden. She was falling in love with an assassin who had tried and failed to kill her. She had a responsibility to the people of Thedas to destroy the Archdemon and end the Blight. Clan Sabrae could never be home again after all of this.

When the grave was filled, Kahlia took the sapling of an apple tree that Wynne and Leliana had found and planted it in the loose soil. Her tears had slowed but not stopped. They continued to trickle slowly down her cheeks, and she no longer had the energy to wipe them away. She knelt there by the grave and let her tears water the tree. Her agony and his end would nourish this tree, and life would spring from death.

She didn’t know how long she sat there, crying and staring at the grave that her best and only friend now rested in, before she felt a hand on her shoulder.

“I heard his last words to you,” Zevran said. Kahlia sniffled and cleared her throat.

“He would have mated me,” she told him quietly, her voice ragged and rough from crying. “I knew he loved me. I would have mated him, even though I didn’t feel that way about him. He was my friend, my companion, my lethallin. I didn’t love him, not the way that he loved me. But it would have been a good life. He would have done anything to keep me happy. He could make me laugh so easily. If we’d never found those ruin and that _damned_ Tevinter mirror, I would likely be preparing for the bonding ceremony right now. It was my duty to my clan to mate and have children. My Keeper and my foster mother were pressuring me. We were both of age, and they didn’t know why I was waiting.” She laughed a little. “I was putting it off because I kept feeling like there was something big coming, something that would change everything. I was right, but I wish I had mated him once we both received our Vallaslin anyway.” She leaned into Zevran, and he put his arm around her hesitantly.

“Why do wish you had married him, even knowing his fate?” he asked her.

“Because he deserved it,” she told him wetly. “I knew what he felt. I knew that we would mate someday. I wish I had given him that happiness while I could. Even though I didn’t love him like that, like I love you, he still deserved to be happy. Even though I couldn’t have stopped what happened, couldn’t have saved him, I should have let him have everything he wanted for just a few years.”

“Would that have made you feel better about this?” Zevran asked. “Or would it have made your pain worse? What if you had a child with him? I think, my dear, that you did the right thing.”

Kahlia hid her face in his shoulder and he pulled her close. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “He deserved so much better than this.”

“So did you,” Zevran told her softly. He lifted her into his arms and carried her away, kissing her tear-stained face gently.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm playing through Origins again, and I just got to this part in the game. It's always pissed me off that there's no emotional response to Tamlen. It's just, "Oh, he's dead. Let's just leave him there and pick up camp. Whatevs." Ugh, I hate that! Especially if you talk to him in the ruin and initiate the romance with him. And still your character doesn't give a shit...
> 
> Because of what happened with Rinna, I feel like Zevran would be the only one of the group to really get it. Alistair tries to help by reminding her that he was in pain and death is better, but that wouldn't really help. Kahlia feels guilty, like she could have prevented his agony, even though she knows she couldn't. Just like Zevran feels like he could have and should have prevented Taliesen from killing Rinna even though it was all they could do with what they knew at the time. And since Zev and Kahlia are in a romance and doing their thing, he would definitely be there for her every step of the way. He'd never let her be alone in the kind of pain he knows she's in.
> 
> Wolf's bane is made up, and a reference to the Dread Wolf. The Dalish would want to keep the Trickster away from their dead while Falon'Din guides them to the Beyond, so they bury the dead with a branch of wolf's bane. The bit about the embrium oil is because, according to Wiki, the Dalish would rub aromatic oils into the skin of the deceased. Since they're traveling but embrium is really common and useful (I would imagine), Kahlia chose that oil because it was the most likely to be available to her.
> 
> I got the Dalish burial rite from Wiki. The rite and its translation are from the Wiki page about the Elven Language. I changed the first word from "hahren" to "lethallin" because Tamlen was definitely not an elder, and the last sentence is original and written by me using my working knowledge of the language.


End file.
